Blanes, Jerome
Outsiders By Insiders
Originally published in a Dutch language edition in the Netherlands in 1997. Jerome Blanes' thoroughly researched biography of the Outsiders is finally available in English, thanks to the hard work and dedication of Misty Lane's Massimo Del Pozzo. This new edition has undergone extensive revisions and up-dates, and is profusely illustrated with more than 200 rare photos and illustrations, mostly black and white. Over the course of several years of research back in the 1990s, Blanes interviewed all of the Outsiders (with the exception of Frank Beek, who died in 1985), including members of the embryonic lineup fronted by singer Leendert Gosinger, as well as various managers, roadies, recording engineers, producers, and other associates and collaborators. It's these voices that tell the story, organized in a straightforward, chronological fashion, with the author interjecting only occasionally to provide back-ground or segue to the next episode or chapter. Blanes* intention, he says, was to present ""pure history,"" de-void of all mythmaking or ""claims of genius and intellectualism."" This approach is largely successful as it gives equal stage time to each of the main players, highlighting their character traits and giving readers an understanding of how each of them contributed to the whole: Wally Tax, artistic, bohemian, self-centered, the face and voice that defined the group in the public's consciousness; Tom Krabbendam, the volatile scrapper and showman; free-spirited, fun loving Appie Rammers: Leen Busch, a team player whose unconventional approach to the drums was a key element in the group's unique sound; and Ronnie Splinter, the group's creative heart and center, the clear-headed purist who knew all along that the secret was to keep it simple. According to Splinter, the group were outsiders even among their peers. ""Most other musicians didn't like what we were doing."" he explains. ""We didn't follow them in their trendy behavior. Technically we weren't very good musicians either. We didn't care much about that. We just wanted to play music and had [sic] fun."" And fun they certainly had. The book is full of entertaining tales about the Outsiders' riotous live shows: the violence, the hysteria, and their often comical exploits. They were wild and unpredictable times. ""Back then it was as if your blood ran through your body twice the speed,"" reflects Krabbendam. ""Anything you tried seemed to succeed. Others had to study music from a very young age in order to achieve something."" The Outsiders recognized their technical limitations, but never allowed these to hold them back creatively. They strived to create a sound that was theirs alone, and in doing so made some of the most pure and emotionally engaging records of their day. By the time of their breakup in 1969, the group had reportedly sold a million records in their homeland, and in the decades that followed they attracted a devoted cult following that has spread around the world The book doesn't try to examine the band's music in any kind of depth, preferring instead to allow readers to form their own opinions about its various strengths and weaknesses. Like the author says in his introduction: this is ""pure history"" only, no frills. And it works. I can't imagine any Outsiders fan not being completely satisfied by its contents. Outsiders by Insiders also includes a full discography, a session-ography (complete with details of equipment used), and a near-complete listing of all the gigs they played. (Mike Stax)"